


Paper Airplanes and Snipped Guitar Chords

by West_Coast_Moper



Series: The Frivolous Battles of Paper airplanes and Petty Sticky-Notes [1]
Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Angst, Arguments, Both Attend the Same College, Enemies to Friends, F/M, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Passive-Aggressive Sticky-Notes, Patrick has a Part-Time Job Serving Coffee, Patrick's 20, Patrick's a Music Geek Who Owns a Copious Amount of Instruments, Patrick-centric, Pete's 21, Pete's a Friend of a Friend, Pete's an Artist Who Dabbles in Writing, Post-Relationship, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Rivalry, Roommates, Small Amount of Bonding, Some Fluff, mentioned sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 05:23:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9642503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/West_Coast_Moper/pseuds/West_Coast_Moper
Summary: In which Patrick's a man who wanted his Cheetos and Netflix with a side of silence, however, his roommate was a bit of a hassle.Patrick decided he hated the guy within seven minutes.Six minutes and forty-five seconds, precisely.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was a silly idea of mine - written for your entertainment~ :P It's not too serious and it's meant to be part 1 to the series of Patrick and Pete rooming together. The tale of the disgruntled roommates~ The feeling's mutual.  
> Hope you enjoy! c:

Patrick's fingers scraped across the chords to his guitar, nearly snapping them in the process. The muscles of his jaw flexed as he gritted his teeth. His eyes narrowed into little black slits and he pursed his lips.

Constant thuds, thumps, and bumps in the night. Moans and groans pouring down upon his eardrums as his fingers raked through thin tufts of dirty blonde hair. His upper lip pulled back into a snarl as he bared his teeth and with a silent growl, he slammed his foot into the shabby wall of his room. Their apartment.

Patrick hated his roommate, he decided. Rather quickly, actually. It started off as a mere dislike as the dude had come off as a bit egotistical and rough around the edges. Patrick didn’t think much of it, he even held his hand out in earnest and introduced himself. The guy eyed his hand with a pointed look, furrowed brows, and a wrinkled nose.

“Seriously?”

Patrick was seething, this guy was the embodiment of everything he despised. Loud, messy, and rude. Hell, even his name was raucous. Pete. Pete Wentz. Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz...the third. That had already sent the alarms inside Patrick's head ringing loud and deafening, however, this guy had been a friend of a friend and Patrick was desperate. 

His shoulders twitched as another keen filled his ears and his foot came down upon his wall once again. If anything this seemed to increase his roommate’s enthusiasm. Every weekend it was creaking wood and bouncing bed springs. Sweet nothings whispered through the cracks of the walls and gentle caresses that Patrick swore he could practically taste. 

With a harsh and angry exhale, Patrick sat up, snatched the stereo from off his bedside table, and turned the knob from zero to a hundred. He grabbed his guitar, dropped down to the fuzzy flooring of his room and strummed along to whatever decided to play. The disc within the stereo's innards was long forgotten. The pounding began to be drowned out by jarring melodies and raspy voices. he let his lips curl into a relieved grin, soft thwacking was still heard on replay within the background noise, but he could withstand it. 

Man, Patrick needed a new roommate, or at least a compromise. Y'see Patrick had a certain amount of patience, however, it had been burned to a crisp. His eyelids fluttered shut, a notch still remaining between his eyebrows as he relaxed against the side of his bedframe, the guitar heavy in his lap. He wasn't sure how many minutes had passed as he sat there, remnants of beaten drums and cumbersome bass flowing throughout his ears. It's mediocre at best, but perfection isn't necessary when all he had to do was lull the sound of forced moans and pathetic puppy love.

His eyelids snapped open when his eardrums ceased to detect irritation from within the bounds of hell, that was his roommate's bedroom. Patrick had only been in there once and that was when Pete had thought it would be hilarious to jack his drumsticks and bury them within his sheets. In the end, Patrick had bought new drumsticks.

Patrick thought on whether he'd make an effort to sleep and attempt to clear away his black holes for eyes or uphold his big and roaring music until the ass-crack o' dawn. The latter sounded rather enticing as he'd like to be an asshole in retribution, but with a casual swallow of his throat he noticed he was quite parched. With bent knees and his left foot half asleep, he sprung himself up from the procumbent carpet and shuffled his way all the way over to the door of his bedroom.

Patrick puffed his chest out and masked on a determined expression. He refused to take anybody's shit, be that of his roommate or his little fuck buddy. His hand curled around the doorknob and he swung it open with ease.

The first thing that met his sight was Pete propped up against fridge, glass of water in hand, and his shirt nowhere to be seen. 

Patrick, with a mental scoff, stomped over to the cabinet, grabbing his own glass as a glare manifested onto his face. He managed to brew his own glass of water without bursting a blood vessel, no words were said, only the pitter patter of Patrick's fingertips against the cold glass of the kitchen counters. That is, until his roommate opened his mouth, voice gruff and obnoxious as he uttered with a smirk.

"Do you think you could keep the music down? It's quite vexatious."

Patrick felt the incoming snap as his hands began to shake and his bottom lip sore from the impact of his blunt teeth. With a deep breath, he kept his composure. Until the guy continued with "I mean, it's not even _that_ good."

Nobody insults Patrick's tunes,  _nobody._

Before he could stop himself, he replied with the rebuttal of "Oh? What would you know about music? Maybe you should stick to what you're more familiar with...y'know, finger-painting."

Patrick knew it was a low-blow, equivalent, but low. He figured the guy's major was in art, considering the copious amount of paintings and sketches within his room. Whether it was a graceless dig or not, the scowl on Pete's face was worth it. 

"Are you saying my skills are gauche?" Patrick held a snort back from escaping his throat.  _Gauche,_  this guy's vocabulary had pretentious written all over it.

"Similar, yes, however, I don't sound like half the snob you do. You're an amateur, end of." Patrick was rather aware of the fact that he was being a dick. That didn't mean he was going to quit. It's not like his roommate the most courteous of beings. Pete's eyes crinkled, squinting in anger as the corners of his mouth fell down into a frown. "Go fuck yourself," is the only retort Patrick received and he wanted to chuckle at the absurdity of it all.

"I think one of us is already being fucked enough," he grunted, swishing the lukewarm water side to side within his glass before taking a tentative sip. Pete's breath is sharp and brief as his fingers curled into trembling fists.

"At least I'm a good lay." The words came to be a surprise from the widened shock of Patrick's eyes. His head tilted in irritated confusion, his mouth open and ready to fight. "I mean how could you be?  _Y'know,_ with that stick up your ass." Pete ultimately beat him to it. Patrick toppled his glass of water into the sink, his figure whirling around as he chose to flounce back into his room with curses being mumbled beneath his breath. His legs froze in front of his door, neck twisting back to glance at Pete's snickering form.

"Just so you know, I'm an excellent lay." Pete looked like he begged to differ, however, Patrick proved this statement a week later with a faceless girl by the name of Heather. She couldn't stop her long-winded words of praise in reference to his mouth, among other things.

The victory was bittersweet and so was the sex, but the blatant frown on Pete's face made Patrick feel like a champion.

Although Patrick felt triumphant, he still spent the next three days with one of his close buds; Joe. The stuffy tension of anger and hatred with a teensy bit of sex thrown in the loop was enough for Patrick to take a vacation from his place for a three-day weekend. Joe told him he could stay longer, a few weeks even, but that felt like giving up, and Patrick...

Patrick's just a little too stubborn to offer his dignity up on a golden platter, fresh, miserable, and ready to dine on.

Not today.

_Not ever._

 

•••

 

Patrick's life was relatively the same. He still had a crappy part-time job serving coffee while playing cheap gigs on the side. He was still receiving noise complaints by virtue of his shitty roommate. His relationship with Pete was still limp in the gutter, where it'll be for eternity, beaten, and thwarted. Their fights were still catty, childish, and petty.

A tantrum was once thrown over the milk being left out. It was Patrick's milk for fuck's sake. Another one happened when Pete couldn't locate his straightener within five seconds, as if Patrick would do something that weak. Sure, he might've filled one of Pete's paint color tubes with glue that one time, but whatever...and yeah, maybe Pete had snipped his guitar chords in retaliation, but Patrick wasn't childish.

_He wasn't_

They began to resort to passive aggressive sticky-notes placed down upon the front of their fridge. One had the scrawled out message of "If I trip over your fucking amp in the middle of the night one more time, I'm shoving your drumsticks where the sun don’t shine." This was clearly the doing of Pete, howbeit, Patrick had his own deck of cards to play.

"Why don't you go sketch some birds in the park, and whine in the form of bad poetry about how you wish you too, could fly." Sure, it's frivolous, and Patrick's not afraid to admit that, but by this point he really didn't give a fuck.

However, while they've both been playing tag upon the battleground with foolish notes and snappy comebacks, Pete's been acting...off. Like, Patrick couldn't quite explain it. His eyes have been duller, darkened circles around them deeper. His words weren't as forthcoming as they originally were. His shoulders were almost always tensed and his frown was more bitter than enraged.

Patrick's wasn't at all saying he was worried, but he was bothered. He had grown accustomed to the constant bickering and symbolic fire of paper airplanes. He had no clue as to what the problem was and why Pete was suddenly so sullen and brooding. He started to wonder if he had trodden too far across a line. More-so than usual, anyway.

Well, it wasn't like Patrick was going to ask. They weren't friends. They weren't even really acquaintances. They were enemies, rivals, and they were at  _war_. A small one at that, but still,  _war_.

So when Patrick stepped inside their apartment, into a conversation he definitely wasn't invited to, he was at the least, speechless. Pete had a cellphone up to his ear, eyebrows creased, and his face crumpled in on itself as he struggled to breathe in pitiful gasps of air.

"How long?" Is how it started, Patrick stood at the front door, knees crouched, and his hands spread out in front of him as if he was striving for a quick escape. Pete's eyes became watery as the voice on the other side came in muffled and nonchalant. The jowls of Pete's jaw twitched violently and Patrick resisted the urge to flee, his fingers still knotted within the ring of his keys. 

"Two months? Two fucking months?!" Pete's voice erupted in a roar, his hands slamming down atop of the counter as tears dribbled down his cheeks.

Oh - _Oh_ , this is not something Patrick wanted to witness. He'd rather not have his skin peeled off for unintentionally eavesdropping, but he's got nowhere to go, nowhere to run. Pete was right there, wet and crusty with teardrops. It's not like Patrick could just make a break for it.

Pete let out a choked sob, hand falling over his mouth as his eyes squeezed shut. Patrick's heart cracked at the sight. They might be enemies, but Patrick isn't a complete dick.

"I can't -  _god_ ,  _a year._ A fucking year, and you do this to me!" Patrick had enough brain cells to be able to infer what was going on here. Pete was being stabbed through the heart and Patrick was stuck, stood there watching it happen before his very eyes.

The voice on the other line responded with few words before Pete shook his head, his bottom lip bitten raw.

"No. No, I'm done. Go fuck yourself Mikey." Pete seemed about to flip his phone shut, but opened his mouth one last time. "I hope it was fucking worth it." With that, the phone tumbled onto the glass and Pete's head fell into his tangled arms. His chest heaved with a coarse breath and his fingers were wrapped tight, slotted snug besides each other, pale and taut.

After a few brief moments, Patrick's toes curled into the insides of his sneakers as his calves tensed. His tongue came out and swiped across his bottom lip while he thought on whether or not he should make a move.

"So," Pete's voice interrupted his thoughts as it came out hoarse and gravelly. "Just how long are you going to stand there?" Pete's head was propped up on his arms, lips quivering, and his eyes still wet. Although the glance sent in Patrick's direction was filled to the brim with hatred, he was unsure as to who it was for.

"Are you gonna say something? Maybe add insult to injury and criticize my relationship skills?" Pete let out a bitter chuckle, wiping his nose against the back of his hand. "Don't bother. Already knew I was shit at them."

Patrick stared, long and hard, his eyes burning, until he finally gathered up enough courage to take cautious steps towards the other. Every press of his shoes caused a creak of the wooden floor until he flopped himself down atop of the stool neighbored to Pete's and cleared his throat. He brought his hand up, slow and gentle, as not to jolt Pete. His palm landed on Pete's shoulder, barely grazed it. Patrick’s eyes flicked off to the side, bottom lip sucked into his mouth as he stared at a spot of dirt upon the tiled ground when Pete glanced to him in awe.

"What are you doing?" It's a simple question that Patrick decided to politely overlook. Blink it away because he lacked a proper answer.

"I'm not going to insult you," Patrick muttered, hand patting Pete's arm awkwardly. He felt like cringing, his mouth was pulled into a straight line, and his eyes were half-lidded. "You might suck, but that doesn't mean you deserve to be cheated on." Pete's expression snapped from bemused to pained within a split second. A shrill noise bubbled up from his throat and his eyes fell to the papered wall across from them.

"I wasted a fucking year with that asshole - I -  _god_..." Pete swallowed thickly, nose sniffling, and his eyes dripping. "Fuck, and now it's over. I like - I like, loved him. Maybe not that far, but...it was a big deal, and for him to just..." Patrick gradually nodded his head, hand still placed stiffly across Pete's shoulder. His fingers loosened, beginning to pull free, until Pete's hand covered his. His breath left him as his mouth dropped open, but only air left him.

Pete eyed him for a short moment, only seconds must've passed, yet it felt like an eternity before the other arched a brow and pulled free. Patrick watched as Pete stood up and off his seat, the wings of his shoulder blades facing him as he shuffled off to his room. He turned back, his neck dipped as his gaze zeroed in on Patrick.

"Thanks," and then Pete was swinging his door open with a loud squeak and disappearing into his bedroom for the rest of the night.

Patrick sat there, body numb, hand still hovered in the air with his fingers bent. His face scrunched up at the uncomfortable feeling of his stomach fluttering. The pulse of his heart was overwhelmingly rapid and his body felt clammy to hell.

_Oh._

Well, this might be a problem.


End file.
